MAYUMI TERADA

GREENHOUSE

NOW THROUGH JANUARY 9, 2016

NOVEMBER 19 – DECEMBER 19, 2015

OPENING RECEPTION THURS, NOV 19, 6–8 PM

Robert Miller Gallery is pleased to present Greenhouse, a solo exhibition of recent photographs and sculptures by Mayumi Terada.

Terada’s work has long been rooted in the process of fabricating miniature sculptures and photographing them. Her sculptural models of interior spaces comprise wood, Styrofoam, plaster, and fabric, which translate in photographs as representing the absence of a person who might have just left the space, and the ensuing, inevitable loneliness that exists between the real and imagined.

Greenhouse follows this same production process, extending themes of absence even further with slight shadow figures lingering in the photographic series view from a bed x a view from bed side. Terada has chosen to depict scenery from low viewpoints in this series, eliciting the feeling of looking up from isolation, perhaps contemplating an eventual passing. Mixing black and white images with pale green monochrome hues reminds viewers of a dreamy, clouded state, as if slipping between both sides. The works imply both the solitude caused by someone’s recent absence, as well as the inevitable absence of oneself from this world.

Accompanying this photographic series is Terada’s entire series of 10 miniature sculptures, six foot platform. “Six feet” is representational of the human body, suggesting a person might be lying on these platforms, though the actual size of the platforms is that of a miniature scale. Terada intends the platforms to be a place for the soul of a loved one to rest, elaborating on her work’s central themes of memory and the absence of the lost past.

Through her photographs, Japanese artist Mayumi Terada reveals seemingly familiar and intimate domestic scenes devoid, though suggestive, of human presence—a soup plate sitting on a table, a shower stall, bare closets with empty hangers. Trained as a sculptor, Terada first builds diminutive domestic sets, and photographs them to achieve these austere environments. Terada was born in Tokyo and received her MFA from the University of Tsukuba. In 2001 she moved to New York, where she currently works and resides.

Greenhouse runs concurrently with two other exhibitions: Ladder to Heaven, an installation by Yayoi Kusama, and Shards_Subduction, a solo exhibition by Virginia Inés Vergara, curated by Anastasiya Siro.